Last week's recommendation.
Week 4 recommendation.
Week 3 recommendation.
Week 2 recommendation.
Introduction to the series and first recommendation.
And back to text. The Text. But the Hebrew scriptures have been adopted, interpreted and reworked by two other religions, as well as poets, playwrights and novelists, so there's no point in recommending the Bible as an essential Jewish work unless you can get as close to the Hebrew original as possible.
The Five Books of Moses, trans. Everett Fox.
Give Us a King! Samuel, Saul, and David, trans. Everett Fox.
If your unimaginative religious training left you with a knee-jerk negative reaction to "scripture," or if Seamus Heaney's version of Beowulf or ancient near-Eastern mythology stirs you, you'll appreciate these astringent translations of the Hebrew scriptures by Clark University professor Everett Fox. They make fresh the overly-familiar "Bible stories" or scorned source of "oppressive fundamentalisms," revealing the Scriptures to be the Jewish version of the Illiad or the Mabinogion: the poetic mythology/history of a civilization.
"Hebrew is a famously difficult language to translate. Multiple meanings and .... puns add to the richness of ancient Jewish texts that is rarely found in English versions..... The translation is lyrical, maintaining a 3000 year old Jewish tradition of chanting these works. Many of the English translations attempt to turn these texts into thick prose, which goes directly against the way they are treated in the Hebrew."Fox's commentary is mostly archeological and anthropological, with notes on why passages were translated a certain way, so philologists will also have a good time.
".....it makes the "boring" parts of the Bible exciting and vibrant. You will never badmouth Leviticus, Numbers or Deuteronomy again after you read this translation. Trust me."
For verse by verse rabbinical exegesis with some history, archeology and comparative anthropology mixed in - and a window on how practicing Jews actually read the Bible throughout the year - I recommend Etz Hayim, the recent Conservative Movement chumash. (A chumash divides the Torah into weekly readings, with a reading from the Prophets for each week, and also includes cantillation marks for chanting. Synagogue attendees usually follow along in their chumash while someone is chanting from the bima.)
Editorial duties for Etz Hayim were shared by well-known authors Chaim Potok and Harold Kushner, among others.
For about seventy years, Conservative/Masorti congregations have chosen to use chumash by Rabbi Hertz, a pre war Chief British rabbi. Some find it very Thee-Thou-stilted in British English, and somewhat apologetic for Hebrew practices, like animal sacrifice. It reflected the insecurity of Jewish life at the time of its publication. This new book and keepsake is a replacement for the Hertz chumash. Etz Hayim was a ten year project, and it reflects the beliefs and ideology of the Conservative movement. It is not apologetic in tone, it gets rid of Thou Thy and Thee, and it contains some commentaries that are inclusive and feminist in nature. I like it because the commentary does not sugar coat the actions of the early Hebrews, and it does not hide from the belief in redactors and an evolving Torah.Both the Fox translations and this new chumash do a beautiful job of grounding the Hebrew scriptures in the time and place of the specific culture that produced and redacted them, while emphasizing their poetry, moral choices, and the universal themes of their stories.
Week 7.
Week 8.
<< Home